


learn to breathe

by GhostCwtch



Category: Kings
Genre: David tries to help, Jack is messed up, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, discussion of past sexual abuse and non-con in fairly explicit terms, implied healing sex?, is that a thing?, off screen non-con, post cannon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 05:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1457350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostCwtch/pseuds/GhostCwtch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After everything, after all they've been to both together and apart, it takes both Michelle and David to try and begin to put Jack back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	learn to breathe

When it happens, it's inevitable in ways that David had not thought to expect. Michelle is the one who brings Jack to him, after all the pain and betrayal and there's nothing about this that he... She leaves them alone together and that's when he starts to realise.  Jack is shaking. He all but collapses to sit on the bed while David stands awkwardly in the middle of the room. Michelle had said that he was needed and so he stays to witness whatever it is that this is.

"It's funny" Jack says, in a voice devoid of humor.

"What is?"

"Michelle tells me. Well, she tells me many things, most of them hard to believe and the things she says about you are the least believable of all."

David takes a breath. The number of quiet secrets in silent nights that have been pressed against each other's skin is as countless as the stars, and many of them have concerned her brother. Many of them have been about Jack, but this time, this time David thinks that he knows which secret is about to be shared.

"Did she tell you that I forgave you? Did she tell you that I loved you when I first came to Shiloh and that watching you break yourself against the rocks of power, broke my heart? Because that's true. I've watched how you twisted yourself around until even Michelle hardly knows who you are. Especially after..."

Well, they both know what happened after.

"Yeah, she told me. Did she tell you what else she told me though? That you made her feel when she thought that part of her was broken? That until you, she'd never once considered breaking her vow and then you came in and shattered it like glass against concrete. That's what I _want_ , David. I want to feel something again." Jack looked at him with dry eyes, the corners of his mouth twitching as if to suppress a smile. "Do you know how long it's been since I've felt anything?"

David thinks back, remembering entering the tower at the end of his short but brutal take over. He wouldn't have even known to look, had simply been helping with the room by room search when something had called him down that particular hallway to that particular locked door. It had only taken a few moments for one of his men to locate the keys, and the scene they'd opened the door to a scene that was the more heart breaking for the veneer of normality laid over it like a shroud. There had been a woman he barely recognised as the girl Jack had trotted out to be his fiance, her eyes cold and her mouth turned down. When she saw him, she'd given a short, brisk nod, and swept by him and out of their lives. It was only after he'd finally found Jack in their suite that he'd wished he'd have known to stop her.

He'd thought that Jack was doing better. Michelle had mentioned, those first few months, several difficult talks she'd had with her brother, trying to help him, bring him back into the fold. She sounded so optimistic that David had hoped things were as they'd seemed and he hadn't asked the questions he didn't think he wanted answers to. And all of that had brought them here. 

Closing his eyes, David listens, searching in the air and within himself for a sign. He knows what he wants, what he'd always wanted for Jack. A light breeze, barely a wisp of a touch, ghosts across the back of his neck and the base of his skull. Small, but unquestionably there.

"Alright."

Jack glances up, meeting David's eyes for only a moment before looking back down. "Alright, that's it? After all the things I've done to you, that we've been through? Do you even know what I want?"

"I know what you need me to give you." David steps forward and pulls his shirt off in one smooth motion. Jack'd eyes widen, his hands twitching where they rest in his lap, like he's not sure if he wants to run away or not. "And I can promise you that I will do all I can to do so." He continues to strip, not making a show of it, just baring his skin to a man who had once conspired to send him to his death. Once he is fully naked, he steps lightly over to the bed to stand between Jack's thighs.

"Now you."

He moves slowly, giving Jack a chance to protest at each button he undoes, making sure that Jack's arms don't get trapped in his sleeves for even a second. When he kneels to take Jack's boots off, the former prince sucks in a sharp breath and leans away. David freezes in place, giving Jack the chance to pull away, to call this whole thing off right here and now. After a long tense pause, Jack waves his booted toes in David's grip. "Just do it already."

While that's definitely not the attitude that David wants for this, it's his priority right this second to get them both naked and on the bed where he can start undoing some of the invisible damage left where much of the physical had healed months ago. He peels Jack out the rest of his clothes, and coaxes the other man into the position he wants on the bed. Jack trembles under him, and is meek in a way that David suspects predates his captivity and likely made it even more unbearable to endure. After a long moment where David simply looks his fill at the lithe body beneath him, Jack makes a quiet sound, almost a sob, and spreads his legs slightly.

"Do it. Come on, just do it, okay, do it."

David makes nonsensical soothing noises and strokes his hands up and down Jack's sides. When that's not enough, he pulls Jack to rest on his chest, ear pressed just over his heart, the strong and sure and steady where he can see Jack's pounding rabbit-fast in the veins of his throat. Jack is slow to calm, but for this David has all the time in the world and he refuses to take what was offered because even now it is not quite freely given. The hands of a king are supposed to be healing, he has heard, and can only hope that particular myth holds some weight as he continues to rub Jack's back.

"She...she used to, uh." David is careful keep his breathing calm, his hands stroking up and down just as they were. As far as he knows, Jack hasn't even told Michelle much of what happened in that locked suite over the years of their exile. "A lot of the time I couldn't get it up for her. I tried drinking at first but too little and I was too aware of what was happening, too much and nothing happened at all and after a while, especially once the guards- " he looks up at David, "She was just as much a prisoner as me, y'know, but I'd been in a cell my whole life. It changed her."

"That doesn't make it right."

Jack searches his eyes, unsure, but looks away before he continues. "After a while, she got sick of it, sick of me. She'd say the one good thing they'd left her in here with was a cock and it didn't even work." David pulls him closer, trying to radiate silent support. "She'd say that and then she, she'd get one of the guards to handcuff me to the bed and then she'd, uh, she'd stick things in me. Ask me how I liked it, if it was really that much better than fucking her. A-and sometimes I couldn't help it, enough times that she figured out what felt good and that, that just made everything worse because then it was like some part of me liked it and she could have me whenever she wanted. The first time she got pregnant-" David can't conceal his reaction this time, clinging tightly and twisting to look Jack in the eye. The other man lets out a bitter laugh. "Oh yeah, guess they didn't really publicise it. Wanted to have a fait accompli and all that. Turned out to be a good idea on their part because it never stuck. I think she was pregnant three, maybe four times. Each was shorter than the last. I told her it was a sign, that it's like those zoos y'know? Where they have a couple of the rarest animals on Earth and they can't get them to breed and even when they do the cubs are too weak to live or the mother rejects them." 

He pauses for long minutes and David is left with nothing to say. This is Michelle's strength, not his. He can give the speeches, fight the battles, and read the signs, but this sort of thing was never his strong suit and years in exile only increased that weakness. "She changed after that. I don't know if she'd thought...I don't know what she thought before, but what I said seemed to kill whatever hope and goodness that was left inside her."

There's nothing he can say to that, and so David simply presses a gentle kiss, a benediction, against Jack's hairline and decides that tonight is not the night for what Jack wants from him. Tonight, all they will do is sleep and, perhaps, in the morning they will try again.

 

* * * * * * * * 

 

Dawn comes to find David already awake. Jack sleeps like a small child or a puppy, curled around David's warmth and twitching in time with dreams. Dawn brings with it Michelle and, to David's surprise a sign of how to help Jack in a way he would never have thought of. She also brings breakfast, which David is grateful for as the last thing he wants to do is wake Jack from what appears to be a much needed rest.

"I have an idea of how to help him, and I'll need you."

"Anything, David, you know that. Your mother is watching Nathan for us today."

David grins at the reminder of his solemn eyed little boy. He tries to get him out into the real world as much as possible and the best part of the world away from royal life will always be his mother's farm as far as David is concerned. It's good though, that there's no worry of their son walking in on anything if Michelle agrees to go along with his plan. 

"I want you to stay, this time."

"What?" Her voice is breathy with shock, her gorgeous eyes round and wide and disbelieving. "David, he's my brother, why, what on earth are you thinking?"

"Not the whole time, not if you're not comfortable, but yesterday he panicked. I think he really does want it but after what that woman did," She sucks in a breath, hard and sharp between her teeth and he gives her a nod, "He told me some of it, maybe even most of it, and that's why I think you should stay. Just long enough to reassure him, I don't want you to feel uncomfortable but we know that he still trusts you and maybe between the two of us we can find a way to make this into what it needs to be for him."

When she still looks uncertain, he leans closer, careful not to jostle the still sleeping Jack. "I've had a sign, Michelle. We can save him."

Her hands fly up to cover her mouth as her eyes well with tears. Her one regret in leaving everything she knew for exile was that she hadn't had the option of helping Jack to do the same. She'd known, even as she was escaping into a new life, that he was being caught in the chains of his own. Their years apart had only strengthened her love for him, and David knew that this sign would mean even more to her than it did to him.

"I'll do it. Whatever it takes, I'll do it to save him. Oh God, he can be saved." The last she said as a whisper against David's lips and he smiled into the kiss.

 

* * * * * * * * 

 

Jack wakes slowly, warm and comfortable and with familiar voices speaking over him. He feels safe, protected even, in a way that he hasn't felt since he was very small. Since before he knew what the world was and what it meant to be part of his family. He recognises David's voice and then his sister's. And okay, not like it is awkward at all to wake up naked, curled in bed with his sister's husband while they chat over breakfast. He considers pretending to stay asleep until they leave for the day, but the state of his bladder is a very pressing concern and becoming steadily more urgent the longer he lays there. Giving up the pretence, he opens his eyes to be greeted by the smiling faces of his sister and brother-in-law. He scoots to the edge of the bed and hooks a pair of boxers, David's as luck would have it, and wriggling into them under the sheet before heading to relieve himself.

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When he comes back, he's surprised. “I would've thought at least one of you was needed to run the country.”

 

“Not today.” Michelle's voice is soft and kind and he finds it more a comfort now than almost anything else. “Today is all about you.”

 

He shifts his gaze between the two of them, suddenly uncomfortable. “What?”

 

“I've seen a sign, Jack.” David says, “You can be saved, you will be. I want to give you what you want from me, but last night showed me that you need some kind of safety measure. I asked myself who I thought you trust most in the world, and the answer in my mind is Michelle. Am I wrong?”

 

“You're not,” he swallows thickly, still unsure of where this is headed, “You're not wrong. Of course I trust Michelle.”

 

“David,” she says, picking up the thread, “thinks that it might help if I stay, at least for the beginning. I'll just stay until you're sure, and if you're not that's fine, I'll stay the whole time.”

 

He looks over at the king, trying to gauge what the game is here, and it has to be a game. What other explanation could there possibly be for inviting your wife to watch you have sex with her traumatised brother? What possible angle was he coming from that would make this seem like a logical solution.

 

“Why?” And, okay he hadn't been planning on just blurting that question out but wasn't that just the story of his life? His mouth always getting him in to trouble.

 

“Because we think that having her here will help. If you have any doubts about her being okay with this, you can just look over. If you think that I wouldn't stop for some reason, you know she wouldn't let me hurt you like that. If need be, you would have someone to back you up, to believe you, to talk to about anything that does or doesn't happen here.”

 

“You don't have to, Jack.” She cuts in. “We just think that it would help.”

 

Jack sits and tries to answer to himself why he's fighting against something he knows he wants. It's not because David and Michelle are married, he's been with married men before and he doesn't think that Michelle being his sister would be enough to change that. There's a tiny whisper inside him, a drop in the aching empty well of his inner self that asks if the reason he's fighting it so much is because he doesn't feel like he's deserving of their love and forgiveness, if this isn't just another way of punishing himself.

 

The same whisper asks, hasn't he suffered enough? Hasn't he truly repented in his heart for the things he had done?

 

And oh, he has. He had time that first year, before things got really bad, to think about what he had done and why and he had realised some where along the lines that the mistakes he had made to lead him here were all his own fault. If he had wanted to be king and had just waited, just been content to learn and watch, it would have happened. He let his uncle's poison tongue stir up the ambition and the resentment he felt against his father until he'd lost his way completely. He'd turned away from his family, his friends and even his true self, packing away all the good in his life until he was empty.

 

David and Michelle just want to bring him back, back out of that emptiness and into the light of being in their family, being happy again for the first time in so long. He's fighting out of fear, fear of change and fear of what that forgiveness could mean for his own life.

 

Strong hands come down to rest on his shoulders, gently tugging him to rest against David's bare chest. He shudders but then relaxes back into that human warmth. The three of them sit in silence until he meets Michelle's eyes and gives her the barest nod. Her smile is as bright as the sun, and she leans forward to join David in embracing him, surrounding him with love.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This beastie changed a lot from where I thought it was going when I started writing to where I ended up. I really intended to write a post cannon, incredibly smutty fic where David slept with Jack and that was pretty much it. But then I rewatched the last few episodes and couldn't think of a way that would work out because I imagine that it would take a few years at least for David to take over Gilboa as the new king and if Jack was locked away, being forced to have sex with someone he hated for the sole purpose of creating an heir in that really toxic environment, it seemed like he would come out the other side of that even more damaged than he went in. 
> 
> So while it didn't happen here, and I am not sure if I'd end up writing it after all, my idea of where this would go is that David very lovingly takes Jack apart while Michelle pets his hair and holds her brother's hand and tells him that he can have this, can have joy and pleasure in his life. And after that they go on to live in a somewhat odd three-some where they all curl up in bed together to cuddle but David has sex with both of them, and Jack learns to deal with his trauma and slowly starts going back out into the world with the support of his much stronger relationship with his sister. And Uncle Jack is almost as much a father figure to their son as David is and their child grows up knowing that he's loved and it's all in all a much happier place to be.
> 
> All in all, I'm not quite sure how I feel about this story, since it got so wildly out of my control, but I had some feelings about Jack being left like that at the end of the series and those are at least resolved now.


End file.
